


The Temple of Melkor

by Morgause1



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: (sort of), Angst, Grief/Mourning, Human Sacrifice, Idol Worship, Illustrated, Lost Love, M/M, Melkor - Freeform, Mourning, Númenor, Tar-Mairon - Freeform, Vala/maia, angbang, the ring - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 10:11:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10829145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morgause1/pseuds/Morgause1
Summary: In the quiet and solitude of night, Tar-Mairon prays.





	The Temple of Melkor

**Author's Note:**

> A little something, inspired by this thing of beauty: http://lieutenant-of-darkness.tumblr.com/post/137843555859/tar-mairon-high-priest-of-melkor-but-there-was

Nighttime.

It’s hours yet until dawn, until the Mortals come with their sickening cries and whispers, their tears and snot and stench. The Maia uses these quiet hours to think and to plot.

No stars or Moon prickle in the dense, smoky blackness of the skies above the Temple of Melkor, and the fire pit is cold and empty. The only light comes from within the Temple, a sickly shining that doesn’t illuminate a thing.

Tar-Mairon burns a feverish glow, prickly and urgent. The Mortals, fools that they are, admire the light. They cannot see that it’s not the pure, healthy light of Valinor, nor is it the wildfire the Maia used to be when his god was there to witness it and fuel it with his own flames. Instead, it is a rushed thing, burning too bright, too fast, as if feeding off scrap paper and not the nurturing bulk of wood. The glow reflects off the walls of the Temple he built, where he now kneels in the darkness. 

The altar where he sacrifices his god’s enemies before him is tall and polished, adorned with wolf fangs and dragon scales cast from iron, and with the dried blood of believers. But it shrinks when compared to the statue towering above it.

It is gigantic, this statue, rising to thrice and more the height of even the tallest Númenorean. It is carved from pure obsidian. Cleverly-illuminated diamonds, worth more than this entire hateful island, shine in its iron crown. It heaves a gold-embellished war hammer, ready to strike, and the black mirrors of its eyes could freeze the very soul of the beholder. Tar-‎Mairon made the statue himself, of course, because who else knows the beloved features as well as the one who spent eons worshiping them in the darkness? As always, it is well-made: alive it seems and yet, not so.

The Men, those disgusting sacks of meat and piss, cower before it. They pray to it, try to barter immortality in return for their children’s blood, as if his god would ever listen to these pathetic creatures. As if they would ever get anything from him but a taste of that same hammer, returning them to the dust whence they came. Tar-‎Mairon is loath to let them defile his memory so, but that is what it takes to fulfill his plan. He knows he must be strong, never surrender. But right now he is the one who kneels before the idol, desperately trying to pretend, even for a moment, that the terrifying statue really **is** him. That Melkor can see him, hear him when he calls out, that he is not alone…

For he is alone. The priests and the guards know better than to invade the High Priest’s nightly devotion and flee right after the sunset ritual. His soul starved for contact in the absence of his Vala, Tar-Mairon’s arms tremble, the floor sways and gives way underneath him. During the day he is able to hold on to his most beautiful form, all silken red hair and bejeweled robes, but at night he lets that burden go. The figure prostrated at the idol’s feet is colorless, naked. He is falling apart, little pieces are coming off of him when his mind strays, hair and fingers and teeth. It takes so much effort just to grow them back and he only barely still cares.

The Ring helps, though. It focuses him on the here and now, giving him some semblance of the stability and purpose he lost when his Vala was taken away from him. It lenses his strength, mixing it with whatever dark power it manages to glean from the Matter of Arda, into which his master had poured his own essence so generously. It's enough to sustain him, but never satisfy. 

He prays to the statue, keening long and loud. He confesses all his sins, all his love, all his pain and doubt. He presses his wet face to the statue’s feet, climbs up to touch its hand and peer into its chiseled, sealed face. And it **does** look like him, cold and hard and menacing. But the simple stony cold is not deep enough, the hardness too yielding. It is not Melkor, it would never be Melkor.

Melkor is lost, and so is Tar-Mairon.


End file.
